KSU Dance Company wow high schoolers at Cobb Energy Centre
By Cheryl Anderson Brown
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(Above) Prof. Ivan Pulinkala led a talkback session after the performance. (Below) Dance Company members like (from left) Haleigh Brooks and Lauren Banks also spoke with high school students in the lobby. Photos by Cheryl Anderson Brown |
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"It was awesome-tastic!" declared North Springs High School senior Darren Squire after seeing the Kennesaw State University Dance Company perform a concert for 500 area high school students as part of the ARTSBRIDGE series at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on April 16.
ARTSBRIDGE offers field trip programs and artists-in-schools programs for K-12 students as well as workshops and seminars to inspire the artists of tomorrow. More than 500 students from Banneker, Creekview, Marietta, North Springs, Pebblebrook, Sprayberry and Woodland High Schools and Dekalg School of the Arts attended the KSU Dance Company performance, which was followed by a 20-minute talkback session with the dancers and choreographers.
The Dance Company presented four pieces from the up-tempo tap piece that gave the concert its name, "Mood Swing," to the award-winning "Incubus," which the company has been invited to perform at the national American College Dance Festival in New York City in June.
The students in the audience applauded enthusiastically after each piece, but particularly responded to "Incubus." During the talkback, they asked questions about the meaning of the pieces as well as practical questions about dance at Kennesaw State. Many of the audience members are dancers themselves and several indicated that they plan to attend KSU.
As Darren Squire said, "When I saw all you could do, I was like, 'I have to go to KSU!'"